Looking For Grandpa's Mine (on the desert in spring)

If you think the desert is mostly yellow and brown, you should see it in the spring.  Then, the desert is green!  Terr e-verte Ironwood,  sap green Mesquite, and lime colored Palo Verde trees fight for space with mint prickly pear, moss colored ocotilla, and and lemon-lime cholla cactus.  Under every tree lush grass spreads in cool pools of emerald.  Saguaros tower above everything else like jolly green giants, wearing their uniforms of olive corduroy.  And behind it all, rugged indigo, amethyst, and sage mountains jump up to meet the sky.
One spring day Moe and I took our little girls and mom and dad on a drive out past Florence, Arizona, to see if we could find Grandpa Johnson's mines. Fifty years earlier Grandpa placed claims on the desert south-east of Phoenix, and mined for copper. Dad helped him one summer, and I remembered his stories of rattlesnakes in the tunnels and bob-cats in the equipment shed. I'd always wanted to see where these events happened, and now we had a chance.
It was a beautiful spring day and the desert sparkled like case of priceless jewels. The air was fresh and cool, but the sun was hot on our heads when we finally found the spot where the mines had been and we climbed out of the car to go exploring. There wasn't much left to see, just some fenced off holes and crumbling boards and cement, but it was still fun to know I was standing on the same spot Grandpa Johnson had once stood, and worked.




“Can I go play at Jessica's?” Kami asked me later that afternoon, after we got home.
“Sure,” I told her. I was happy to let her go next door. It had been a nice trip, but now she was kind of grumpy from the long ride, and so was I.
The phone rang a few minutes later.
“Hi, Gale,” Jessica's mother greeted me when I answered it. “It sounds like you had a nice drive out on the desert this morning.”
“Did Kami tell you about our trip?” I asked, a little surprised that Kami had even cared enough to mention it.
“She sure did,” Jennifer told me with a laugh. “That's why I'm calling you. I thought you might get a kick out of what she told me when I asked her where you guys had been all morning. Do you know what she said?”
“No,” I replied, wondering what Kami could have come up with that would tickle our neighbor so much.
“She said, 'We went out to the desert because grandpa lost his mind, and we were looking for it,'” Jennifer laughed. “So I was wondering if you found it?”